


A Monster Who I'd Like to Know

by TheShinySword



Series: Gothic Horror Bandori AU [2]
Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Biting, Character Death Mentioned in Backstory, F/F, Gothic Horror AU, Implied Sexual Content, Lesbian Vampires, Lots of biting, Polyamory, Vampire Bites, Vampire makeouts, Vampires, anachronistic use of the word boppin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23901688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShinySword/pseuds/TheShinySword
Summary: In Castle Shirasagi, the undying Countess has stalked her halls alone for years. But she will never know peace again as long as she has two lingering guests.
Relationships: Hikawa Hina/Maruyama Aya, Hikawa Hina/Maruyama Aya/Shirasagi Chisato, Hikawa Hina/Shirasagi Chisato, Maruyama Aya/Shirasagi Chisato
Series: Gothic Horror Bandori AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722817
Comments: 14
Kudos: 106





	A Monster Who I'd Like to Know

**Author's Note:**

> This story is in the same loose Gothic Horror AU as Fur and Fangs but is only tangentially related.

Countess Chisato Shirasagi, a title she’d given herself so many centuries ago she almost forgot it wasn’t hers, assumed her castle would lie dormant in her absence. She expected dust, she expected cobwebs but she hadn’t expected the west wing to cave in and the basement to flood and a dozen other irritating issues that made her regret the arrogance of constructing Castle Shirasagi in the first place.

Calling it a castle was asking to much of the imagination anyway: it was a manor with a spire and ambition. Chisato resented every decision her younger self had made in its design. It had columns. Giant gaudy columns in the front stretching from ground to roof like she lived in some sort of ancient temple because it took her one hundred years to develop taste but only fifty to gather the funds to build a home. The rest of the manor at least served more function if not fashion. It was one thing to be a centuries old monster, it was quite another to be unfashionable.

At least if anything the generations of derelict had given the manor more artistic cohesion, not less. The gardens had grown wild in the absence of any guidance but manicured lawns were out of style amongst the elites anyway. The weeds had overtaken her rotunda. Ivy weaved around the face of her home like a clinging mask. Her sturdy wooden pergolas—once home to her favorite grapes—had all fallen in on themselves but they formed almost an intentional folly—if Chisato was so inclined she could invite a hermit to live amongst the ruins and make herself the talk of every dinner party. Not that she needed the attention, or any help to get it.

It had only been a few months since she’d reopened the doors, posing as a long forgotten relative using her haunting resemblance to herself as her claim. If the castle remembered its mistress it made no effort to welcome her home. All the repair work would be hers and the small army of carpenters, gardeners, roofers and laborers willing to work for an eccentric noble who never showed her face before the evening.

The Countess spent most of those long evenings carefully cataloging the damage to her home. She made her way from room to room, noting every crack in the moulding and peel in the wallpaper and every so often encountering a problem without an evident solution. Presently, she found her puzzling issue in the library.

Chisato was very proud of the library. It was a massive room, rivaling her ballroom in size, with as many shelves as it could fit and still look presentable. By some miracle the years had spared her collection from mold and rot and the books were dusty but still intact. On a good evening, she would spend hours in the room reading volume after volume in the company of herself and herself alone.

A small bird twittered over her head as she entered her library, flapping just inches from her head before swooping up to its nest somewhere in the rafters. Chisato glared. The bird wasn’t the only songbird to recently take up residence uninvited in her home. Her library had begun to resemble an aviary more than she preferred it to.

“H-Hina. Not here—aaahh!”

There was the second unwanted songbird, much nosier than the first. Chisato paused at a bookshelf wondering when was best to turn the corner and interrupt the growing solo of moans and squeals from within. She could be polite and leave them be but while there was a certain level of comfort expected from a hostess, Chisato’s guests were quickly trying the limits of her hospitality.

Besides, they might mess up her books.

Chisato turned the corner with a small, forceful cough. She was unsurprised at what she found found fumbling around in her stacks: Hina Hikawa with her fangs dug into Aya Maruyama’s collar and her hand up the young woman’s skirts. Chisato’s little foundling and the human she’d gotten attached to about to rut like animals against priceless tomes. Hina had never met an antiquity she wouldn’t desecrate.

As for poor Miss Maruyama, she had gotten herself forced against Chisato’s collection of classical poetry, manhandling a particularly esoteric volume as the vampire at her shoulder sucked at her blood on one side and stroked her inner thigh on the other. Chisato pitied her really, eventually she would learn the folly of letting a vampire feed off her though it would undoubtably be the last thing she ever realized. Chisato could loan her the clothes with all the skirts and petticoats and many layers befitting a Lady but she was still just a foolish village girl under the delusion a vampire loved her.

Hina’s ears twitched at Chisato’s cough. She whirled around, dragging Miss Maruyama with her, waistcoat flaring. Hina always insisted on wearing men’s garb for reasons of comfort lost on Chisato. Her grin grew around Miss Maruyama’s skin until it was finally too wide to keep her fangs inside and she pulled away with a bloody mess in her wake.

“Chisato~. You should join us~,” Hina sang in the pleasant voice that Chisato had become regretfully fond of. Even with crimson dripping from her mouth Hina was unfortunately charming. Though for a vampire like Chisato, perhaps it made Hina more appealing.

“I think Miss Maruyama is plenty occupied,” Chisato said, eyeing the flushed and squirming features of Miss Maruyama.

“Aya’s fine! She has two shoulders,” Hina pushed Miss Maruyama’s unmarked shoulder forward. The young woman didn’t seem opposed to Hina’s proposition, though perhaps that was simply her docile nature in the face of Hina’s presumption. Still, she had the decency to show some embarrassment. “A drink will help you relax.”

Chisato had refrained from drinking from a human in almost thirty years. She wasn’t about to break the streak for Miss Aya Maruyama. Her scent was appealing but nothing Chisato hadn’t smelled and resisted before. “My evening plans do not include such savagery.”

“They’ve got to be pretty boring plans if they don’t include all the zappin’ sounds Aya makes,” Hina purred, her hands still occupied with Miss Maruyama’s petticoats.

“H-hina please,” Miss Maruyama gasped, “You shouldn’t bother Lady Shirasagi.”

“The girl has some sense Hina.” _Some_. “I gave you quarters for a reason, make use of them.”

“Alright, alright.” With a bloody smile, Hina scooped Miss Maruyama into her arms. “I’ll leave you to your boring books.” In a blink, Hina was gone with only a light ruffling wind left in her wake. Chisato almost envied her youthful energy.

But the Countess enjoyed her solitude. At least, so she assured herself as she took over the space previously occupied by the couple. Thin fingers ran over and adjusted every disarranged volume, pausing only at the feeling of something damp and warm. Chisato lifted away her hand and looked down at the drop of crimson on the tip of her pointer finger like a ruby on a ring.

Chisato tensed, every muscle in her body as taut as a pulled rope. It would be so easy to bring her finger to her lips. It would just be the slightest taste, surely not enough to drive her mad. Just enough to remember what it was like to—

Chisato violently rubbed her hand against the skirt of her black gown. Again and again she rubbed it like a washerwoman at the river’s edge, until she was certain every speck of temptation was gone. She collapsed against the shelf, panting with shallow breaths she didn’t need to take.

She needed the love birds out of her castle. Chisato was bound by her own code of vampiric politeness to take care of Hina as long Hina needed. Chisato had sired Hina, thus she cared for her. But as long as Hina insisted she loved Miss Maruyama, Chisato was stuck with the human under her roof as an overly familiar guest.

Familiarity could only ever breed contempt and the Countess Shirasagi surely hated Miss Aya Maruyama.

* * *

It was strange how quickly Aya adjusted to how suddenly everything changed. One day she was Aya Maruyama, normal village girl whose only positive traits were a half-decent singing voice and an inability to give up and whose only story of interest was the one magical night she’d with a starry eyed monster hunter who made habit of calling her fascinating and pretty when she wasn’t sure she was either. The next day that monster hunter was back at her door with fangs poking out of her lopsided grin and half begging for a taste of Aya’s blood. And on a third day they were sharing a bed in a castle neither of them belonged in.

Maybe it wasn’t quite that fast. There was more hemming and hawing over the morality of letting a vampire use Aya as a decanter (though less than she’d like to admit) and a lot more coaxing needed to get her into bed but the end result was the same: Aya stretched out in her chemise in a canopy bed in a manor bedroom larger than the house she grew up in with a naked vampire curled around her like a needy cat.

Aya was certain that whatever Hina Hikawa was—selfish, childish, callous—she wasn’t evil. That was enough to make Aya fall for her. So low were Aya’s standards that she fell for the first not evil vampire to knock on her door.

It helped that Hina was just about the most attractive person Aya had ever met. Beautiful even, handsome definitely. Hina had been a bundle of lithe muscle before she turned and turning had made everything so much more. Even lying asleep against Aya’s chest, her arm clutched around Aya’s waist in subconscious possession, she still radiated danger.

According to Countess Shirasagi in one of her many lectures on Hina’s “true nature”, Hina would eventually stop sleeping. She only slept now because such habits were hard for the mind to break. The real surprise was how quickly Hina forgot she used to breathe. Even the lady of the house still drew breath out of some remembered humanity but Hina only took in air to speak. It only helped her find new ways to sneak up on Aya. Often Hina appeared behind her without warning until she grabbed Aya around the waist and—

And then events like those that evening occurred.

Aya watched her lover’s unmoving chest with no way but trust to know Hina was still there. As she slowly ran her hand through fluffy teal hair, Aya hoped it was a long time before Hina forgot how to sleep. For now, these were their precious moments in the bedroom on loan from their gracious host and owner of the manor they made their temporary home. However long it could last.

Aya continued to stroke Hina’s head, letting the motion soothe herself more than the sleeper as her thoughts drifted to their uncertain future. It had been easy follow Hina down this rabbit hole, it was harder to stay the course. The countess was the vampire who turned Hina. There was a bond there that Aya could hardly begin to understand. Something deeper than family, almost like a king and a lord. Though, Aya supposed if a lord and their king got up to the sorts of things Countess Shirasagi and Hina did the scandal would destroy their kingdom.

Aya was surprised at her own lack of jealousy. Hina had been upfront about how deep her affection for her sire ran from the outset. If Hina was the most handsome woman Aya had ever met, then the Countess was the most beautiful woman. It would be so nice to know some of the Countess’ intimacies for herself.

So, she wasn’t jealous, at least not of Countess Shirasagi.

It wasn’t that she needed anything other than Hina, Aya thought as her hand trailed from Hina’s hair to her cheek, running over the soft hairs down to her unblemished neck. But that didn’t keep her from wanting someone other than Hina. Aya’s other hand instinctively drew to the puckered puncture marks on her own clavicle. Hina wanted the Countess and Aya to be close. Hina loved them both so to Hina it was only natural that she want them to love each other too. As much as any part of this could be called natural.

Aya’s fingers danced over Hina’s shoulder, spinning around a stray freckle. Hina’s skin was so cold, like caressing a snowman as Aya had once teased in a rare moment of confidence. But still Aya was drawn to it. She leaned over Hina, the ends of her pink hair tickling at Hina’s bare chest. With a quiet exhale she lowered her mouth to Hina’s collarbone.

Would the taste of Hina’s skin be any different with teeth and tongue? Aya opened her mouth so slightly, just enough that the air could escape. Her heart raced. For every wicked thing they’d done in the dark, this was the thing that set her most ablaze: the idea of marking Hina the way Hina marked her. Aya hovered, the temptation was powerful but a strange feeling a little like fear was stronger.

“Are you going to do it?”

Aya jerked away at the sound of her vampire’s lyrical lilt.

“Aww, I thought you were going to drink me up.” Hina rolled onto her back, head comfortably nestled on Aya’s stomach. “Coulda been boppin’.” She yawned, the tips of her fangs peeking out from her upper lip.

She swallowed hard. Her skin prickled at the memory of the vampire against her. “H-Hina.”

“Aya,” Hina said with clever laughter in her voice. “You are missing one important thing~.” Hina reached for Aya’s hand and pulled it to the corner of her mouth, green-gold eyes sparkling with mischief.

Without thinking, Aya pressed her thumb along Hina’s soft lips until they parted for her. Her finger fell naturally to those horrible, beautiful fangs. Hina’s eyes danced.

Hina opened her mouth wide. It was impossible to look anywhere but directly at the two pointed, elongated incisors still tinted with a hint of red. She grabbed Aya’s wrist and forced her hand deeper, forced her to press her thumb against that fang—wet and hard.

Aya shivered. Good village girls didn’t feel like _this_ in front of a vampire, all willingly weak and needy. It was such a queer feeling to look your certain death in the teeth and let her use you as a pillow. To want her to use you. Aya rounded Hina’s fang with her thumb, her breath hitching as she caressed her danger.

The point of the fang was dagger sharp and well known to Aya’s flesh. Yet she pricked herself on the tip anyway with a sharp inhale. Hina’s hand kept Aya’s wrist locked in place—there was no pulling away.

Hina’s pupils dilated to pinpricks. Even though she was surely full, just a single drop of blood could trigger her vampiric desire for more. Hina raised her chin, letting Aya’s thumb slip onto her lower lip where Aya let it rest. The vampire’s warm tongue slowly lapped the drops of blood like wine spilling down the side of a glass.

“Aya,” Hina whispered Aya’s name with a musky voice that so quickly overrode Aya’s sense of self preservation she wondered how she’d stayed alive for twenty one years. “I want more. Give me more Aya.” She asked the same thing whether her lips were wrapped around Aya’s wrist or her breast.

There was a part of her, most of her, that trusted Hina’s word that wouldn’t take more than Aya could handle. But there was another part that was pretty sure it really didn’t matter what Aya wanted. The asking was ritual, the answer already assumed. “Yes.”

Quicker than blinking, Hina struck. She twisted her body on top of Aya’s lap—bare skin straddling cotton—wrenched the wrist in her hand to her mouth and bit.

There was no time to adjust to the pain. Aya could squirm, she could throw her head against the oaken headboard, but she couldn’t move away. She could only force her other hand into her mouth to muffle the sounds she made: half moan, half scream.

It was always this way with Hina, playful until the moment Hina wanted to take and take and take every single drop Aya wanted so badly to give.

Hina stopped short of sucking Aya dry, two feedings in one day was the edge of too much for both of them. She pulled her fangs away with a final pinch and a long, soothing lick over the fresh opening. Aya quivered with her shallow panting.

Strong arms wrapped around Aya’s neck. Hina nuzzled Aya’s flushed cheek before kissing her with a delicacy that belied the violence of the previous act.

“Nothing tastes as good as Aya.”

Aya’s chest filled with an absurd pride over something she had done nothing to accomplish. She hugged Hina closer with unsteady arms as the vampire kissed along her jaw smearing Aya’s own blood all over her face. “H-Hina, you’ll get me dirty.”

Hina chuckled into Aya’s ear, “Hmm~? But you look so beautiful like this.”

Whatever blood Aya had left rushed to her cheeks. Maybe vampires had some seductive magic, but Hina didn’t need any to make Aya hers.

* * *

Castle Shirasagi had the most magnificent dining room Aya had ever seen. To be fair, it had the most magnificent everything she’d ever seen: bathrooms with carved marble tubs, parlors with grand pianos, a full stable, a trained staff and every luxury she’d only ever heard about in stories about pompous lords and the ladies they pampered. The dining room was of particular elegance, however.

It was a long room with floor to ceiling windows and an arching ceiling, clearly meant to host large boisterous parties around its great table. Said table was carved from cherrywood imported from somewhere far away and long ago and meant to seat at least twenty. It seemed excessive with only three settled at its sides, particularly when only one of them could eat. The length was only further accented by Countess Shirasagi’s insistence at sitting as far from her human guest as possible while Hina sat as close as possible without sitting in Aya’s lap.

A maid with stern eyes and silent steps laid a full tray of food in front of Aya before disappearing through a door Aya didn’t ever see open. Countess Shirasagi must have paid the maids enough that they didn’t care they worked for a house of three single women with two made beds and meals laid out for one. If they ever had their suspicions about the trio, they never voiced them.

At the head of the table a second maid poured Countess Shirasagi a full glass of a red liquid too thick and viscous to ever be confused for wine. Perhaps they all thought her a wild eccentric who drank cow’s blood from a crystal goblet for her health. Before a few months ago, in their place Aya would have guessed everything in the world before guessing her mistress was a vampire.

“Hina,” Lady Shirasagi called down the table, motioning with her glass, “Would you like some? There’s plenty to share.”

“Nah, can’t stand that stuff!” Hina laughed, patting Aya’s thigh under the table with no attempt at subtlety, “I’ll just take a sip of Aya later.”

Aya blushed. “Hina!”

“I don’t know why you’re wasting your time with that stuff when Aya’s right here!” The vampire snaked her arm around Aya’s shoulders, her fingers tugging at the low neckline of Aya’s dress to expose more of the soft skin Hina loved so much.

Lady Shirasagi cocked a curious eyebrow, “Are you comparing Miss Maruyama to cattle?”

Aya stared down at her medium rare steak, feeling a sudden kinship with her poor meal.

“Aya’s way more boppin’ then a cow!”

It was not a compliment Aya particularly had confidence in.

“That’s not a word Hina.”

“You sound like my sister.”

Aya cut into her steak, red juices oozing from the slice in the meat. She’d become so use to the sight of blood, usually her own, that steak no longer looked like it was bleeding. Aya knew how much heavier a drop of blood was, how it landed on a surface with an impossible dignity no watery redness could match. Aya sighed into her steak as her appetite began to retreat.

“Did your sister let you use nonsense words at her dinner table?” Countess Shirasagi was trying to seem annoyed but Aya could spot the hint of a smile around the edge of her glass. There were so many layers to the Countess, too many for one person to ever pull away. One moment it would seem she could hardly stand their presence, the next she would playfully prod at them until one squirmed and occasionally, so occasionally Aya had only seen it once, she would look at Hina with a genuine fondness that Aya longed to have aimed her way. But Countess Shirasagi rarely even looked her in the eye.

“Hehe, we didn’t have a dinner table. Unless you count the campfires. There were a lot of those,” Hina laughed again. Her laughter always filled the entire room. Hina was a party unto herself. “I can’t wait to see Sis again.”

They had spent many late nights (early mornings by anyone else’s account) curled around each other as Hina told tales of the Hikawa monster hunters, her family business. Hina’s eyes never glowed brighter than when she talked about her older sister taking down a wayward demon or banishing a vengeful ghost. By Hina’s accounts, they’d been separated ever since Hina turned into…

“Hina,” Aya started softly, “isn’t your sister a monster hunter?”

“Yup! Sis is the best in the world!” Hina said obliviously.

“So, if she’s a monster hunter and you’re...” Aya didn’t want to say it directly. She wasn’t even sure it was the right thing to say! She shared a bed with one and she’d entertained the fantasy of sharing a bed with another and they both seemed as decent, if not more so, than many of the humans Aya had met in her life.

Countess Shirasagi leaned forward, smile curled and gloved hand tapping on the table. “She’s what, Miss Maruyama?”

“A vampire,” Aya settled on.

“Doesn’t mean I’m a monster!” Hina laughed. “Sis kills monsters. She wouldn’t kill good vampires like me or Chisato.”

“Good vampires?” Countess Shirasagi seemed almost bored with the idea.

“You saved my life! What else could you be?”

Aya looked towards the Countess with wonder in her eyes, “You saved Hina’s life?”

“I did nothing of the sort,” she pointedly looked away, focused only on the meal in her hands.

“Did I never tell you Aya?” Hina ignored Countess Shirasagi’s protests. “I was gouged in the stomach, real bad. Stomach wounds don’t heal, ya know. They just get infected and fester until you die scream—”

“Hina!” Aya cried, finally pushing away the steak she’d barely touched as her stomach fully revolted against the sheer concept of eating.

“—like I was saying, I was dying and Chisato let me become what I am now. So I know she isn’t a bad person either.”

“I’m hardly a person Hina.”

Aya’s ears picked up the Countess’ soft voice murmured into her glass but she pretended not to hear anyway. Even a simple village girl had some manners.

It would be quite some time before they ate dinner together again.

* * *

Time passed more quickly than it usually did for Chisato. Normally, it passed slowly and without much variation to mark the passage from one day to the next. She moved from one shelf in her library to another one over. She caught the amorous couple in more and more peculiar locations but that was the limit of their interactions. The bird moved out of her library and she almost missed his company. But while the events stayed the same, the time passed much faster.

So it did when one’s time became limited.

Chisato was probably dying, as much as one could die twice. The tremors started in her hands but quickly they began to encompass her entire body, bone by bone. The limits of her body were finally approaching. The heavy volumes from her shelves tumbled from her hands onto the floor where they laid until she could suffer the indignity of asking for help. The many buttons of her dresses proved to difficult for her limited dexterity. Even drinking cow’s blood, the thing that had been just enough to keep her alive but not let her have a life, was proving too difficult to manage.

She had returned to Castle Shirasagi in a foolhardy attempt to prolong a life already prolonged beyond meaning. The Countess had hoped a regular diet of blood, even cow’s blood, would help but all she was doing was wasting time she didn’t have. Time that could have been spent continuing her life’s work of undoing her life’s work. But instead she puttered around her library like an old man in her garden and soon she’d be dead with nothing to show for centuries of life but a ruined castle and—

“Where’s your mind today Chisato?” Hina purred behind Chisato.

Chisato jumped, at least she tried to but she had no energy and a black and white dress with a skirt too puffy to allow any movement quicker than a glide holding her back. “Hina.”

Thin but powerful arms, one around her waist with the other around her shoulders, embraced Chisato from behind. Chisato reached out for the closest bookshelf to keep herself from tumbling into the ground. “You let me sneak up so quickly.” Hina nuzzle the side of Chisato’s head, leaning close to her ear to whisper, “It’s like you’re not even paying attention to me.”

Hina was going to make it impossible to not pay attention. Her hands roamed. The one on Chisato’s waist ventured up and up until it was clasping at the small buttons keeping Chisato’s bodice modest. She allowed three to be undone, exposing her cleavage to the open air, before reaching for Hina’s arm.

With a playful snarl, Hina twisted Chisato’s protesting arm behind her back as easily as twisting the stem of flower. She pressed Chisato forward against the bookshelf and chuckled into her ear, “You’re going to let me win again?”

Chisato had never let Hina win. There was no fighting a vampire regularly feeding on a human as a vampire who had abstained for decades. Hina’s strength and speed were Miss Murayama’s doing. But to Hina’s credit, she had never done anything Chisato didn’t want her to.

Hina hummed over Chisato’s skin, pulling down the collar of her dress to expose her shoulder with pointed teeth.

“Won’t Aya get jealous?”

“Aya’s tired.” Hina dragged her fangs down in tingling lines along Chisato’s flexing bare shoulder blades. Chisato’s back arched away at the sensation, some long dormant prey instinct begging her to flee from the clear and present danger behind her. If she was honest with herself, and she rarely was, Chisato liked it. “I tell her everything we do anyway.”

“Poor Miss Maruyama.”

Hina laughed between kisses as she made her way back up Chisato’s shoulder and to the nape of her pale, slender neck. Chisato would miss that laugh, Hina’s voice twinkled like the stars.

“Thinking of biting me? There’s nothing for you there, I promise I don’t taste as sweet as your little pet.”

“Aya doesn’t taste sweet.” Hina’s grip tightened around Chisato’s wrist. Chisato’s shoulder ached pleasantly. Hina hurt. She was so curious, so insatiable as to be careless. Fortunately, Chisato liked the last reminder of her former humanity. Pain almost made her remember fear.

“I’m surprised—nnmph,” the countess held back a moan as Hina kissed her neck, sucking at base. There was dignity to maintained. “She seems entirely made of sugar.”

“She’s… boppin’.” Hina grabbed again at Chisato’s waist, pulling them as close as they could be with a thousand layers of stuffy clothes between them. It was so tempting to demand Hina do something with her teeth about the rest of the blasted buttons in their way.

Chisato paused before answering, enjoying the sensation of Hina going over every inch of her exposed neck with tongue and teeth. But still, the school marm in Chisato still jumped at the chance to scold,“That’s not an adjective Hina.”

“It’s what she is. You should find out for yourself.”

It would be a lie to say she hadn’t considered it. To say she didn’t long for it every time she smelled Aya Maruyama’s blood on Hina’s lips. But she had decided on a principle, and she would be strong enough to die for it. “Shouldn’t you be more jealous of your property?”

“Ha, you’re so weird. She’s still a person.”

“Give it a decade and you’ll stop thinking like that.” All vampires did except Chisato. They started with the best of intentions and then they disappointed her, every one of them.

“Stop thinking people are people?” Hina hummed. “I love her and I love you, why wouldn’t I want you two to love each other?”

“You love me?” Chisato’s hands slipped off the bookshelf. Hina’s arms remained tight around her.

“You saved my life.”

“We’ve discussed this, I—”

“I know but I’m still glad. I’m still here, I still get to experience all the zappin’ things in the world. And it’s because of you. So of course I love you.”

Chisato turned her head to find Hina watching her with something indiscernible in her eyes. “Hina… I’m fond of you as well.” In her own manner she cared for Hina, as much as two monsters could.

Their lips met with an aggressive affection. Vampires could never love each other as softly as humans did. There would always be some echo of violence in their kiss. Enough to leave Chisato dizzy at their parting.

“Fond enough to let me rip this dress?”

Some feral piece of Chisato desperately wanted to say yes but this was still her library and she still had an image to keep up, even if it was for no one but the ghosts. “Self-control is a virtue.”

“Self-control is boring.” The worst sin one could commit in Hina Hikawa’s opinion.

“Self-control is—”

“Eep!”

Chisato shoved at Hina with her shoulder blades at the sound of the startled shriek. It didn’t do much to move the young vampire but she got hint and let up. Chisato broke loose, gathering her skirts in her arms and twisting to face her mortal guest.

“I-I’m so sorry,” Miss Maruyama stuttered. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. P-please continue—I mean I’ll leave so you can—I don’t mind—”

“Miss Maruyama. That is enough,” Chisato let her skirts fall, long and sweeping.

Hina rocked back on her heels, pointed shoes twisting between Miss Maruyama and Chisato. “Hmm~ I think I just remembered something I have to do!”

“You think?’ Chisato asked, dryly.

Hina winked, “Very important business to do. Seeya!” And she was gone without any proper explanation left behind.

Miss Maruyama bit her lower lip, her eyes flicking between Chisato’s undone buttons and a loose book on the shelf. “C-Countess Shirasagi I should go too.” She turned and began to hurry away.

Chisato felt the ghost of Hina’s strength in the forming bruises on her arm. With a sigh she called after the fleeing girl, “Miss Maruyama.”

She paused, turning back with those frightened doe eyes.

“If you care for your safety Miss Maruyama, you will flee this place. The doors are not locked, you are no prisoner here. You have no reason to act as a plaything for a creature who does not care for you.”

The fear faded from her eyes. “Hina cares about me,” Aya said it so simply, just as one observes the weather. It boiled Chisato’s blood. How was it that one person could be so blind?

“Miss Maruyama,” Chisato snapped, “she wants to consume you. She want consume every part of you. You’re not a lover, you’re a meal with benefits. This romantic fantasy you have concocted in your head is just that, a fantasy. Someday the illusion of her nature will fall.” Chisato stepped forward, Miss Maruyama stepped back. Good, the girl’s senses had not completely left her.

Miss Maruyama pressed her dress’s folds flat. She looked good in the indigo dress Chisato had loaned her, mature, beautiful even. She seemed to be busying herself with the action so she could arrange her thoughts. Softly, she spoke. “I trust Hina. I trust her when she says she loves me.” She looked Chisato in the eyes with the strength Chisato had so much trouble looking straight into for fear she’d never want to look away. “I trust you too.”

“Why? I have given you no reason, so you must have invented one.”

Miss Maruyama closed the distance between them. “But I still do!” She clasped Chisato’s hands with an unwise boldness. “I think you have a kind heart Lady Shirasagi.”

Chisato pulled her hands free, “I have no heart.”

“Even if it does not beat, you still have it.” She reached out again for Chisato. Chisato slid back against the bookshelf, hiding her retreat with elegance.

“Has Hina told you about me Miss Maruyama? Has she told you what I’ve done?”

Miss Maruyama frowned and hesitated, “She told me you saved her—”

“I _killed_ her. Not just in making her a vampire,” Chisato added as Miss Maruyama began to protest. “I created the vampire that made her mortal wound. Her death is my sin.”

“You didn’t do it with you own hands.”

But she did. Even if Chisato didn’t make the injury, she forged the weapon. “Do you know how vampires are made, Miss Maruyama?”

Miss Maruyama shook her timid head.

It was gruesome business. Remembering made Chisato feel even weaker than she was, but she pressed on. “To become a vampire, one must drink blood from a vampire as the human lays dying.” The shock on Miss Maruyama’s face was enough to make Chisato continue. “I was around your age when I was turned. Maybe younger. First he stabbed me, then he forced his open wrist into my mouth. It is nasty, brutal business. I was given no option but still I should have refused.”

“Lady Shirasagi—”

Chisato refused the interruption. “I killed the first person I drank from.” Her childhood friend with the kindest eyes, “I was starving and she let me and I took until there was no more.” Chisato’s sweet prince knew what could happen and still offered herself whole. Chisato could never repay the debt. “She bought me freedom and do you know what I did with it?”

Silence.

“I made money. I built this castle. I called myself a countess. And I found girls, I found girls in the most unimaginable situations and pulled them out. And I gave them the option to be turned, to take the power they were robbed of by their miserable births.”

“You saved them.”

“I saved NO ONE,” Chisato roared, pushing forward and reversing their positions so Miss Maruyama was instead forced against the shelf. “Do you know what I did? I created monsters. A dozen monsters reaping their bloody way across the land and I have spent my time away from my home undoing the damage I wrought.”

To Chisato’s surprise, the girl didn’t tremble. She seemed such a cowardly sort in Hina’s arms and at the dinner table but here, just the two them, Miss Maruyama’s face was filled with a sort of bravery Chisato was unused to seeing up close. “I don’t think people—I don’t think _you’re_ responsible for the choices others make. Besides, you made Hina a vampire and she isn’t a monster. I don’t think you are either.”

An irrational sort of anger possessed Chisato. What an assumption to make. What did Aya Maruyama know of monsters to give her such confidence?

“Well _Aya,_ ” she growled the two syllables of her name like a warning, “if I am so admirable, you can become just like me.”

“I-I…”

They were barely inches apart. As she looked into Aya’s eyes, Chisato lifted her wrist to her mouth, opening just wide enough to let a fang run across the unbeating vein still pretending under her skin. The sting could barely be felt. She raised her hand, holding the wrist out to Miss Maruyama—a single line of unflowing crimson glistening against her porcelain skin. “I will make you the same offer. Drink of me and you can equal Hina at last.” It would be Chisato’s last act of spite, turning someone so sweet and pure against her own nature.

Aya hesitated between Chisato’s eyes and her open wound. Then, very carefully so as not to disturb the self-made wound, Aya took Chisato’s hand in hers. She turned over Chisato’s hand softly, stroking her palm in ticklish lines. Her eyes flicked with the nerves of a rabbit deciding whether or not to run or accept her fate. “I don’t want it.”

Chisato sneered, “Of course you don’t. Why would you want to become a monster?”

But she didn’t release Chisato’s hand. Instead, Aya reached up to her hair and pulled loose the red ribbon tying up her long locks. She met Chisato’s confused eyes with gentle determination. It had been so long since Chisato had been touched by such tender hands. Aya wrapped her ribbon around the wound over and over before finishing it off with a bow. “You can’t drink from a vampire but you can from a human. For the first time in my life, I’m useful to someone. Please, Chisato, let me be useful to you too.”

Chisato brushed her wrist with her other hand, fingers running across the stained silk. Such a simple act of undeserved tenderness. She had no heart to swell and yet she felt the pang nonetheless.

“I don’t want to see you hurting,” Aya closed the distance between them boldly. She leaned down and pressed the softest kiss to Chisato’s shocked lips. It had hardly more pressure than kissing the air.

Hina was wrong: Aya was the sweetest thing Chisato had ever tasted.

Chisato pressed back. Their second kiss was so much more than the first: more touch, more lips, more tongue, more force. Chisato’s hands found purchase on the shelves behind Aya, holding tight so she could press herself closer as Aya held her waist.

The more they kissed, the more Chisato was certain—she wanted to live. Even though she was a monster, she still wanted to live. For all the pain she’d felt and all the pain she caused, she couldn’t bare to hate living.

Chiasto’s lips fell away from Aya’s mouth down to her neck. “Aya,” Chisato whispered into her skin. Her first name came so easily now. “Aya.” A kiss. “Aya.” A suck. “Aya.” A nip. Chisato could feel the want she’d denied for so long building in her stomach, making its way up to those two fangs in her mouth. She wanted to drink from Aya. She needed to.

Her fingers spidered down Aya’s neck, searching for that point where the vein strained against the skin. Aya shivered and pulled her head up, offering more of her neck to Chisato with shaking, anticipatory breath. “Drink me.”

A shudder ran down Chisato’s spine, it was so much to have someone offer themselves up like that. She could control herself now, so she assured the concerns in the back of her mind as she hovered over Aya’s neck. Aya’s breath was shaky but she stood strong, hands moving to grip Chisato’s shoulders. The Countess moved her own hands to the divot of Aya’s hips.

Chisato waited with fangs over flesh, summoning all her courage into the two sharp points before plunging in.

Aya’s body jerked, instinct fighting against desire, but Chisato had strength enough to hold her in place with hands around Aya’s thin frame. The warmth hit her tongue before the rest of her senses could adjust. It was like everything she’d ever wanted was on her lips. Chisato drank deeply, not caring that her lapping was more like doglike than ladylike. Every part of her frozen body thawed at once, Aya’s blood spreading out inside her to warm every corner of Chisato.

It was so good. Her grip tightened around Aya’s moaning form, tips of her fingers digging into Aya’s pale dress down to the skin underneath. Chisato was spurred on by both her hunger and the noises pouring from Aya as she lapped and sucked and drank from her neck.

“I can’t—please—”

More, she sucked.

“S-stop.”

More, she needed.

“Chisato!”

The sound of her name pierced through Chisato’s animal brain. Something inside Chisato snapped back to life, granting her just enough awareness to jerk free.

Aya shuddered in her arms. Her face was pale and clammy, her breath let loose in shameless pants as her head fell forward onto Chisato’s shoulder. Her hands balled up in the folds of Chisato’s dress.

“Aya,” Chisato whispered with more care than she meant to let through. “Are you alright?”

She raised her head just above Chisato’s bare shoulder. Aya nuzzled the skin with the tip of her nose. Hot, quivering breathed misted on Chisato’s skin, making the outside feel as warm as the inside.

“Ay—haaaa...” Aya’s name faded into shock as pain, so sudden as to be unfelt in the moment of impact, ripped into her shoulder.

Countess Shirasagi was being bitten. Aya was biting Chisato. Aya’s jaws were somewhere between a lover’s nibble and animal’s tear.

It hurt good. Chisato’s hands struggled up Aya’s back, fisting in her hair to hold Aya in her place. Chisato understood the meaning of Aya’s actions. They were to be equals. A mark for a mark. A bite for a bite. Aya held Chisato in her mouth for a temporary eternity.

Finally, with a last whimper, Aya relinquished her. Chisato gasped for air she didn’t need as the relief of the release took over for the pain. Chisato felt around her shoulder, fingers running over the indents left behind by Aya’s teeth. For the first time in years, Chisato laughed. What an odd guest she had.

Aya’s legs forgot their purpose and she collapsed into Chisato’s arms, her eyes growing heavy. Chisato found it was no struggle to hold a grown woman upright. Strength rushed into her muscles, long dormant power bursting into each one. With no effort at all, she lifted Aya into her arms just before she passed out, ensuring the last thing she saw was the unassuming smile on the Countess’ face.

* * *

There something soft and cool like the underside of a pillow pressed against Aya’s cheek. Aya curled closer, tucking her arms into her chest. She was in that space just between being asleep and being awake where things could still go either way. If she was going to be this comfortable, she hoped the sleep could continue.

Someone was gently petting her hand and running their fingers through Aya’s hair. Aya’s heart felt at peace, until she remembered there was no way Hina would ever wake her up with such a light touch and the panic set in. Aya’s eyes flew open and she stared into the face of Countess Shirasagi and the round, jagged bite mark on her shoulder.

Ah. In her post-suck haze she’d had the bright idea of biting Chisato back. It was bound to be the last thing Aya ever did. Very kind of Chisato to let Aya rest before her execution and on the Countess’ lap no less.

But instead of glaring, Chisato smiled serenely, her hand running from Aya’s hair to her cheek. “How do you feel?”

Aya reached for the puncture marks on her neck, “A-alright.” Chisato had taken a lot of blood. Chisato had taken too much blood, actually, Aya was lucky to still be alive. But she didn’t didn’t really care about that. Aya stretched out her arm to Chisato’s face, pressing her hand along Chisato’s cold cheek, “Can I kiss you again?”

Vampires couldn’t blush but Chisato certainly tried. With a bashful look that betrayed her nobility, she leaned down and let Aya capture her lips in a playful kiss, just needy enough to let Chisato know she was wanted. Aya giggled as they parted, her lips tingling.

“That’s not fair!” Suddenly, Aya found herself crushed under the entire body weight of her jealous vampiric paramour. “Kiss me next!” Hina whined.

“Hina! I can’t breathe!” Aya squirmed.

“Humans need to breathe,” Chisato chided, rolling Hina off of Aya and onto the plush mattress they were all lying on. Aya didn’t recognize the dark curtains hanging from the oak bed canopy bed frame, it must have been Chisato’s room.

Hina’s lips curled up in her cattish grin, “a little blood and you’re the boss now~. I like this zappin’ new Chisato.”

“That’s not how that word is used.”

“It’s how _I_ use it.” Hina settled against Aya’s stomach.

“This is nice,” Aya said with perfect contentment. Her body was exhausted but her heart had never felt quite so full as it did on that bed, lying on Chisato with Hina lying on her.

“It is,” Chisato murmured, “would you like to stay here? Not as my guests. As…”

“Yes.”

Hina hummed in agreement.

“Thank goodness, because now that I’ve had human blood again I can’t possibly do without it,” Chisato and Hina exchanged a knowing look. “We’ll have to figure out a schedule to ensure optimum blood production for Miss Maruyama.”

Aya sat up with a panicked: “Huh?”

“That’s right,” Hina agreed. “But Aya can handle it! Right?”

“Eh?”

“We’ll probably have to alternate every two weeks at first but over time perhaps we can up her to an every week schedule.”

“Wait w-what?”

Chisato and Hina turned to her with devilish glints in their eyes. Hina smirked, “It’s your fault for being so tasty.”

Chisato leaned up and kissed Aya’s forehead, “We’re teasing you, Aya.”

Aya fell back to the bed with an exhausted sigh. On one side, Hina wrapped around her arm and nestled into the crook of her neck right at the mark Chisato had left. On the other side Chisato threw her arm possessively around Aya’s waist before allowing herself to rest her head against Aya’s chest and rapid beating of her heart.

Three women with only one heartbeat between them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I just like vampires okay. 
> 
> Title taken from one of my new favorite songs The Hill by Snowmine.


End file.
